Guide timeline scaling for home videos

Channels DVR Server Feature Requests
#1

Ive been playing with home videos now in channels using the beta now that the beta metadata editor is underway.

https://community.getchannels.com/t/beta-metadata-editing

Most of this class of videos have non standard lengths. For example most music videos are 3-6 minutes.

When creating a virtual channel for groups of small videos like this, the guide really isnt too usable when looking at the timeline, because everything is scrunched together

Perhaps there isna way to scale the timeline for home videos, internet clips, music videos etc? Or a zoom view?

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#2

Yes, this is a known issue and sort of expected. They’re short videos.

Scaling it will never work as it would make all of the other channels very unusable.

We’re brainstorming on the best thing to do for this, but it’s quite tricky.

#3

I can only imagine how tricky this is. Realized that as i wrote the feature request..

Very complex issue to address without “quarantining” all the virtual channels composed of those small clips from the normal guide interface.

For my use case, i really dont care about the scheduling aspect in the guide. For music videos on the “Peter Gabriel” channel i just find the channel and whatever is playing is playing. Its more of an aesthetic issue with the guide that i noticed. It is nice though, to hit the skip button and find a tune, and use watch now. Still very useable as is.

For home videos, some of them may be long, some may be short. And for all with those web clips we’ve all saved the lengths are going to get even more random. So other people the may have different use cases for their virtual channels.

A very complex issue indeed.

#4

It may be as simple as a checkbox on the virtual channel to NOT show blocks of programming, and just show them as if they had no airing data at all, like some custom channels are.

We don't have a lot of options. But the scenario of music videos and home videos is REALLY great, so I think it's worth figuring it out.

#5

What about doing something with the channel name cell? Regular channels display the On Later/Upcoming page, but virtual channels does not; for those the virtual channel starts playing instantly. To keep with a similar UX, perhaps a virtual channel's "Upcoming" page could display a sort of playlist/queue for that VC?

#6

No!!!!

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#7

Other than your personal preference, can you offer any reasons why a similar paradigm used for regular channels should not be used for virtual channels? Something beyond just, "I don't even like that feature for regular channels, so don't add it to others"? Also, if you don't like my idea, how do you propose addressing the situation?

#8

I was thinking something like that. It is a little weird to have whole guide timeline look like an empty box going out to infinity

Perhaps some kind of text in the timeline that shows groups of these small clips in some bigger group, like 30 minute chunks. . Much like some video editors allow grouping of small clips into a larger box for display in their timelines for ease of management. Perhaps you could have a custom metatag that says “I am a small clip” , or use the actual filesize to know the length in minutes - then somewhere hopefully semi or fully automated, when the virtual channel pulls them together for the guide, it could group them into larger “chunks” for display..

Perhaps these “chunks” are a new type of collection, composed of small clips….

Im just brainstorming….